A dual-chamber cardiac pacemaker comprising an atrial detection unit which
is adapted to detect electrical signals in the atrium of a heart as
atrial sense events, a ventricular detection unit which is adapted to
detect electrical signals of a ventricle of the heart as ventricular
sense events, a stimulation unit which is adapted at least to trigger the
delivery of electrical pulses to the ventricle as ventricular stimulation
events, and a control unit which is connected to the atrial and the
ventricular detection units and the stimulation unit and adapted to
control triggering of the delivery of pulses in dependence on the atrial
detection unit and the ventricular detection unit in such a way that
pulse delivery to the ventricle is triggered after the expiry of an AV
time after detection of an atrial sense or stimulation event if prior to
expiry of the AV time no ventricular sense event is detected by the
ventricular detection unit, wherein the control unit is further adapted
to divide ventricular sense events into at least two categories of which
a first category concerns ventricular sense events to be associated with
natural stimulus conduction from the atrium to the ventricle while a
second category concerns ventricular sense events to be associated with
ventricular extrasystoles or premature ventricular contractions (PVC) and
control of the cardiac pacemaker is differentiated in accordance with
whether a ventricular sense event is or is not associated with the first
category, characterized in that for the control of triggering of pulse
delivery an AV monitoring interval is provided in such a way that the AV
monitoring interval is triggered by each atrial sense event which is
outside an atrial refractory time, wherein the cardiac pacemaker is
adapted to associate ventricular events occurring within the AV
monitoring interval to the first category.